LegenDary
by MS-Manuscript
Summary: “I haven’t slept well okay!” Lily hated it when he snapped at them. She preferred his dirty looks, his nasty mouth, his flashy magic. Anger was not something she liked from him. She had seen what his anger could do.
1. Nose

Characters belong to Craig Thomas and Carter Bays. Not me. Story line is my own.

Lily was the one to notice him first. It was a little odd, considering as they hadn't seen him for a week. Normally it would be Ted that would notice him. After all, they were brothers, wing-men, as he liked to say. She never really liked that reference. They all remembered the time Ted tried to teach Barney to drive… and the idea of him being the pilot in a fighter jet was down-right scary. But Lily had been the one to notice their missing comrade, not Ted.

"Barney?" Every looked over their shoulders when she spoke up, eyes on the door. It was silly, but the only way she could tell it was Barney was the blond hair and the suit. True, it was very rumpled… it looked slept in. But it was a suit. Ted was the one to get up, grab a chair and offer it for the very tired looking man to slump in.

"Hey, haven't seen you all week." Marshall was the one to say this, catching everyone off. They worked together. Wouldn't he have seen him at least once in a board meeting?

"Yeah, ah. It's been a long week." Something wasn't quite right with him. His eyes were down, face pale, no cheeky grin…

"You okay Barney? We haven't even had a text from you. You look terrible." Robin always was the one to say what the others didn't want to.

"I haven't slept well okay!" Lily hated it when he snapped at them. She preferred his dirty looks, his nasty mouth, his flashy magic. Anger was not something she liked from him. She had seen what his anger could do; there was a hole in the wall to prove it.

His eyes were dull. A bit shiny, like there was a weird film over them, but otherwise dull. They were such a sparkling blue, they shouldn't be so lifeless. Hadn't slept well? Obviously not.

"Shouldn't you go home and get some sleep?" Ted, voice of reason, sadly mistaken.

"I've been there all week." The waitress had passed by, handing Barney his scotch before cleaning off the table next to them. He grumbled into it, sipping before pulling a face and putting it down.

"You've been home, asleep, all week?" Lily didn't want to believe it. But with his head down, Barney nodded.

"Guys… I think I'm sick."

"You don't get sick, remember? You stop being sick and you get awesome." Robin smirked, but a look from Lily whipped it off. "What could make you sick?"

Barney shrugged. Something wasn't right, not at all.

* * *

Ted's phone rang, starting him awake and grappling for it. Who would be calling him at three in the morning?! A glance at his ID told him it was Stinson. God, if that man was stuck in some sex thing again…

"'Lo?"

There was a pause; the only sound was heavy breathing. Oh ick, please, not _during _sex, that's just gross.

"Ted?" Ted? Not Mosby? First name, not last, that wasn't part of the Bro Code.

"Can, um. Can you come over? Please?" It was Barney; it was his phone, his voice. But it wasn't him. Something wasn't quite what it should be.

"Sure, you need me to bring anything?"

"No, no… just, can you be here, please?"

"Yeah, I'll be right over."

Ted would have given anything to have said no. Right now, he wished he had turned his phone off. So he didn't have to see this, so he didn't have to realize just how much trouble his friend was in. Because opening the door to the overly clean apartment put him in a horror movie. The door opened, but there was no one there. Only a trail of blood from the couch to the unused kitchen. It lead to the apartment's resident, who was sitting in front of his sink in nothing but his boxers, hands holding a dish towel to the bottom half of his face; face towel and hands covered in blood. Hearing the footsteps, the blonde's eyes caught his friend's.

"You called me out here for a nose bleed?" Ted hadn't meant to sounds so mean. Hadn't meant to sound so full of hate. But he had been pulled out of bed so early in the morning, to see this.

"Ted, I think I'm going to die."

Grabbing another towel Mosby sighed and sat next to Barney, pulling his hands away carefully to see what they were up against. As soon as the pressure was pulled away gobs of blood slid from the thin nostrils, landing on the floor between Barney's knees. The new towel was put into place, Ted helping the other to stand. Leaning him over the sink they worked together to wash Barney's hands and arms clean, Ted dabbing at his friend's face.

"You're not going to die. Want to tell me how this happened?"

"I sneezed."

"Come on, who did you screw, and when did her boyfriend come in and deck you?"

The look that Barney gave him made Mosby wish he could take it back.

"I was watching the news _Mosby_. I turned it off, sneezed, and it started to bleed." The news? But, that was…

"Stinson, that was over half an hour ago." The bluegray eyes dropped back to the sink.

"Why do you think I woke you up?"

There was quiet, Ted thinking back to the bar. Barney had been so abnormally quiet, he was so pale… slept for a week? There was something wrong, bleeding from the nose for over thirty minutes. Sighing he let Barney at the sink, going to the suit room and pulling out the worst looking pieces of crap the man owned. There was only one of them, and boy was it hard to find. But find it he did, and only after he made sure to dig out the only pair of flip-flops the man owned (on a bet, he bought them) did he go back out. Barney hadn't moved. He still stood over the sink.

"Come on Barney, I have clothes for you. I'm taking you to the hospital. Forty minutes with a bloody nose is too long." Barney nodded. He didn't fight back? Ted didn't want to deal with this.


	2. True

Lily was the first one there. It was kind of odd, considering as, once again, she was the first to notice something was amiss. Ted had been with Barney all morning, simply standing in the corner letting the doctors do their thing, and being silent support for the clearly frightened man. Which was odd. Barney had spent plenty of times in the hospital; dislocated hip, hit by a bus, the list goes on. He was no stranger to pain with Marshall's Slapsgiving. So him being afraid in the hospital with his friend right there? It wasn't right.

Lily was the first to come into the room that wasn't covered in scrubs or smocks. She didn't say anything, glancing at Ted before taking in Barney. The man was sitting on the bed, in the stupid looking gown, sheets up to his hips. He was watching his hands, which were shaking. She had read Ted's text over and over again, the kids in her class noticing that something was wrong when she didn't say anything about their throwing paste around the room. They had gotten so quiet that the teacher from the room next to Lily's came in to see if everything was okay.

"I… I have to go."

"What?"

"I have to go, my friend, he…" She couldn't finish. She just grabbed her jacket and ran out the room, coming back a moment later to grab her purse so she could afford the taxi to the hospital.

"But, school ends in five minutes." The teacher was so confused.

Marshall was the next to get to the hospital. His suit was a mess, nothing in his hands, his jacket missing and his tie messed up.

"Barney, man, I…" Lily hugged him, burring her face in his chest. It shut him up, making his arms go around her. This wasn't like when they had broken up. He remembered when Barney had charged into Ted's place, announcing how sorry he was. Or the time that Stella had left Ted, with nothing but a note. And the reaction Barney had had… a grasp on the shoulder. Sure, after Marshall's break up he was excited because he had another wing-man. But after he and Lily had married, they had compared notes on their friends. One thing that had caught Lily's eye was that Barney had gotten Marshall a phone number, then took it from him. Essentially, pulling him from depression, but keeping him free and true to Lily.

When he had divulged to the pair that he was in love with Robin, it confirmed what Marshall had thought. His trying to get Marshall a date was a mask. Everything about this man was a mask. His sleeping around was to hide the fact that he had feelings. Hundreds of other things and disguises came to mind. But here, laying in the bed, was a man with no camouflage. There was no hiding from him at all. Everything was on display. Defenseless. No fancy suits to throw you off, no fire magic to make you look the other way.

Robin was the last to come in, having had to get to work to get her phone off her desk where she had forgotten it on the last filming. She had stared at the phone for ages, the world moving around her. It couldn't be right.

"This can't be right." She declared loudly, slamming the door behind her, crossing her arms. "You're lying."

"Robin." Ted launched himself from the corner, grabbing her arm and trying to pull her out of the room. His fingers fumbled with the doorknob. Robin wrenched her arm away, storming over to the bed and grabbing Barney's face. His eyes made her drop his chin.

"Shut up." He muttered, dropping his gaze to his hands again. She had never seen so much hurt before.

"But, it's not…"

"Yeah, it is, okay?" There he went again, snapping at them. Lily winced at the tone.

"Barney, she's just… we're all just worried." She offered, pulling herself from Marshall and resting a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. "Don't do that, we're just trying to help."

"Help? _HELP_?! You can't _help _me Lily. No one can help me. I have acute myeloid leukemia. I'm going to die, and it's going to be fast. So take your pity and shove it."


	3. Hat

Lily secured the corner of the banner on the push-pin in the wall, grumbling about how it was always the short one that had to climb up and take care of the hard-to-reach-things. Robin and Marshall weren't doing the banner work, no; they were off doing other things. Eh, at least it was done now, and it was going to be well worth it. Anything to bring back that smile.

It had been over a month since Barney had been home. From the moment Ted brought him to the hospital for an extended bloody nose, he'd been a resident there. Lily still didn't like being told that her friend had cancer by _text message_ but she could understand. Ted wanted the others there for Barney, and didn't want to leave the room to make a call. It made sense. Didn't mean she had to like it. But it was all in the past, she had to forgive and forget. They had to ignore whatever hard-feelings they might have from the way they had been treated over the last month and a half. Everyone had been on edge. But now, everything was going to be just fine, everything was going to be okay, and they could be happy now!

At least she hoped so. Last time she had seen Barney (it was a week ago Tuesday) he had looked like crap. He didn't look like Barney, he didn't look awesome, he looked…

Sick.

But she could understand why. Having Daunorubicin pumped into your veins for three straight days could make anyone cranky. She couldn't even pronounce the drug! But she knew what it was doing. Everyone knew what it was doing. The doctors were poisoning their friend, killing him, to save him. God, that sounded wrong. It really did. Sighing, Lily folded up the step-ladder and stuffed it in the corner behind the clone trooper. She thought it was a storm trooper, but after saying it wrong every time, Barney finally snapped and showed her the entire series. All six of them. And he pointed out the differences. Like color. She didn't really care, but it mattered to him. So, whatever. She stuffed the step-ladder behind the trooper-thing and went to help Marshall in the kitchen.

Finger foods were the choice of the day. Marshall had noticed last time he had visited Barney's room that he was looking kind of thin. A month and then some of being nauseous and eating only hospital food… yeah, not very good on the body. But Ted had told him that Barney might not be up to eating anything big, if at all. So he wasn't going to get anything spicy like take out from Lily's apartment. And he wasn't going to get anything big like a turkey sub or something like that (how was he with dairy anyway? Right, no mayo). Just, something light. Chips of all kinds were in mix-matched bowls, popcorn was in another one. There were just snacks, lots of water, (though what Barney really wanted was a drink, they had been told explicitly no alcohol) and plenty of nuts. Marshall had read somewhere that nuts were supposed to be good for energy. Barney hadn't had much energy lately. Again, they could understand why.

Marshall and Lily picked up the various food-bowls, making several trips from the small kitchen to the wide living room. That's where they met Robin. She was busy rearranging the furniture. Ted didn't have to tell them that Barney was going to be sick still, they all kind of figured it out on their own. Robin was in charge of making sure that there was plenty of space for a quick get-away to the restroom. The chairs and sofa and tables were all set at least an arm's-span and a half from each other. There was no chance of tripping over anything if there was a sudden need to run. Now it was just a waiting game. A long, un-necessary waiting game. Why? Because Robin was on edge enough. She had _no idea_ how to deal with Barney. Evil, annoying, man-whore Barney she could live with. He was fun, he was exciting, he was funny. Scared, sick, weak Barney she had come to hate. She had sat with him once. Only once. It was his second day on chemo, and he was a mess. Shaking, violently ill, afraid to be touched… she had sat with him an hour before texting Ted saying she couldn't stay, that she couldn't come again. And she hadn't. She hadn't seen him for over a month. And now he was coming home. And it scared her shitless. Would he still be like that? Even now? What would he look like? Lily had said he wasn't going to look like he used too.

There were voices outside. Lily was excited, Marshall stood and smiled, glad that things were going to be normal again. Robin stayed where she was, trying to force a smirk if not a grin. But it wouldn't come. The door opened, Ted entering first. Like Marshall, he was in a suit. They had agreed that for this, they would suit up. Following him was someone that was less-than-dressed. Barney. Over-big sweatshirt and jeans, shoes that had never seen a drop of polish. And a fedora. A large hat, pulled down over stunning silverblue eyes. It made his ears look huge.

"WELCOME HOME BARNEY!" Lily, Marshall, and Ted shouted, echoing the banner that Lily had hung over the door to the hallway. Robin finally managed to smile. Barney gave a tight-lipped grin.

"Thanks guys." He was so quiet. Was this really Barney? _The _Barney Stinson, the man that slept with over two hundred women, including herself? Robin doubted it. This was someone else. How dare they look like Barney, how dare they use his voice?! She was boiling, and Lily could see it. The other woman moved in front of her, trying to keep her from doing something stupid. And thus the evening started, Barney avoiding any kind of sustenance or contact. They talked, sat and watched a movie, enjoyed company. But Barney sat apart from the others, sometimes slipping into the back to use the restroom. Lily worried about him, voicing this to Ted who quickly dismissed it. It was just nerves, he'll be back to normal soon enough.

But Robin knew it wouldn't. Nothing would be. When she tried to make it normal by making a big-hands joke, she reached out for a high-five from Barney. Who just forced a chuckle and looked at his hands again. Robin couldn't take it. Everyone was acting, everyone was trying to pretend it was normal. Angry, she stood.

"Stop it! You're not Barney! You killed him and took his place. Just stop it!" She snatched the hat from his head, revealing the hairless scalp underneath. Barney sat, stunned, what little color he had was gone. Robin knew this was coming, she knew his hair would be gone. But, but not like this. What had she done?! What, what had she… oh god. Before she knew it, she was outside, hat in hand, hailing a taxi. No one had followed her. She was glad.


End file.
